“I've found some cheap flights to Brisbane with Air China but I assume they're best avoided?” So asked reader Shari Rendle, who sought advice about travelling to the Queensland capital in the spring.

Best not avoided, I recommended. Ms Rendle might not enjoy quite the inflight cuisine of Singapore Airlines, the wines of Qantas or the seatback entertainment of Emirates, but she will be flown safely to the other side of the world and back on a Star Alliance airline for an absurdly low fare.

In China, the education is divided into three categories: basic education, higher education, and adult education. By law, each child must have nine years of compulsory education from primary school (six years) to junior secondary education (three years).

For the last few months I’ve been a glorified English babysitter for two Chinese five-year-olds. I’d like to say I’ve done a pretty decent job. I taught them the basics like numbers, colors, the alphabet and how to write their names. While the writing is still a bit iffy (for some reason “a”s are a problem), I think I’ve accomplished a lot so far.